redemption song
by Tiffany Blews
Summary: I'm done with it. Just so you know." "All of it?" "All of it." "Then I'm here to stay." "Promise?" "Promise." Caitlyn/Nate


put a lid on all that noise.

---

Breaking screaming yelling crying sobbing falling drinking cutting dying.

Dying.

Would you like me to apologize for who I am?

I won't do it.

---

There's the face of a young man on my refrigerator door.

He smiles at me, even though he doesn't want to, and his chocolate brown eyes sparkle in spite of himself.

This man loves me, even though he turned away.

I stare at him all the time, imagine the fun he's having in those far away places that I know he's visiting. I picture him in Paris, Spain, Tokyo.

I hope he's having fun.

Loving laughing talking kissing being trying forgetting building smiling living.

Living.

---

Sometimes, my fingers ache for the feel of his skin.

I wrap myself up in blankets, drown myself in champagne, turn up the music, and wait him out.

A part of me thinks that he'll return, because he always said he loved me, I could see it all over him, but a part of me thinks he'll stay away.

They say I'm like poison. Like acid that corrodes away the shiny metal and leaves behind dirty rust.

Maybe he finally listened when they told him to run.

---

The razor scares me.

It's cold in my fingers and it looks ugly, but in a beautiful sort of way.

I slide it across my flesh, and the euphoria breaks immediately. With the pain comes pleasure, the unbelievable feeling of being in control. My eyes close and, in my haze of vodka and blood, I dream.

There are flowers, and a lake. And a boy weighed down with sadness, his eyes a muddled shade of brown.

I don't ask for help, even as crimson drips off of my fingertips, down, down, onto the yellow petals of daffodils.

"You've got to breathe," he whispers from across the field, but I hear him as if he's yelling.

"I don't remember how." I yell at him. A smile stretches his face, and he sets fire to the whole world.

"They were so pretty, Nathaniel." I say to him, and suddenly, he's crying.

"You'll die this way, Caity. You'll die." He wraps his fingers tight around the gash on my forearm.

"I'm not sorry."

The end.

---

I've always been the girl with the bitter taste in her mouth.

The jealous one, the angry one.

Mitchie was naive, and Tess was a bitch, but both of them combined were never as toxic as me. I was waiting to erupt, a quietly simmering evil that was just _dying_ to burst out.

It was so well hidden that even I didn't know.

---

The alcohol triggered my earthquake.

The vodka hit my throat and, suddenly, I was a raging, screaming mess. All the pain that I'd been stuffing away for years, bubbled up, exploded, and I completely fell apart.

I'd yell for my mother, yell for her failures, yell at my father, yell at his turned back, cry for my sister, cry for her run away family. And, mostly, I'd throw it all at the one person who picked me back up again when I was scattered on the ground.

---

"You're so fucking pathetic," Tess says to me, the olive from her drink falling between her teeth.

"No more pathetic than you are, bitch."

She chuckles, "You were supposed to be smart, Caitlyn. What the hell happened?"

I don't answer her; partly because I don't know the answer, partly because I don't really care.

---

Redemption comes in the form of a phone call from my baby sister.

"Caity," she says, "I can't take it anymore. Save me, please."

Fuck my family.

---

I put down the fire, throw every bottle I own away.

Casey would be disappointed, and our parents have given her enough of that to last her a lifetime. She arrives at the airport wearing my seventeen year old face. I hug her, fighting away tears.

"Thank you," she whispers into my ear, and I almost lose it.

---

"He's gorgeous."

Casey says, her hand motioning towards the picture that owns my heart.

"Yeah, he is."

She doesn't ask questions. I thank God.

---

Most days, I don't think about it.

I don't think about picking up the bottle, throwing myself to the ground and losing every shred of myself until I can't even feel anymore. I don't think about slicing open a vein, watching red pour out until I'm almost empty.

Most days, I am okay.

I'll write down the pain, throw it all on paper and drink coffee, listen to the stories Casey tells me about her senior year. I help these upcoming artists sing meaningful songs, and most days, I don't want that feeling like I used to.

But, sometimes, I am weak.

And I'll take out my flask, the razor, stare them both down and wait for my hands to pick them up. And then I'll hear him in my ear, hear his last words, and I'll think about him coming back to me.

And I put those evil things away.

---

At four am on November eighteenth, Tess calls me.

Sobs pour out of her mouth and she says that it's the end, and she can't make the bad feelings go away anymore.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she says into my ears, and I cry with her, beg her to let me put the pieces back together.

She hangs up.

---

The razor and the flask.

The flask and the razor.

They took Tess away.

"Caitlyn." He says.

"Nate."

I throw them into the fireplace.

---

The black makes me want to puke.

Tess's mom cries like she cared.

Nate's hand is wrapped securely around mine, and I want to crawl inside his skin and never come out.

Casey seats stonily beside me, unbelieving of the fact that Tess Tyler is dead. She only got to meet her once; she swears to never forget her.

Shane and Mitchie are seated on Nate's other side; they cling to eachother, lost because they don't understand why she would do such a thing.

I know that pain. I know that hopelessness.

I'll never go there again.

---

"I'm done with it. Just so you know."

"All of it?"

"All of it."

"Then I'm here to stay."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

* * *

weird as hell. sorry. whatever, i kind of like it. review you pretty things :)


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